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The ever interminable trio of King, Cole and Striker are on the talkie tonight.

Smackdown Money in the Bank match: Kane def. Drew McIntyre, Matt Hardy, Christian, Kofi Kingston, Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler and Big Show

After clearing the ring early, Big Show broke the first rung of the ladder with his foot, before swatting another rung off with his hand. That was cool. They teamed up on Big Show and there was a sequence of different people all pulling each other off the ladders and scrambling up themselves. Ziggler came close but was hip tossed off the top by Christian. Matt looked to hang Christian up on the top rope but he landed on his feet. Everyone seemed to lose their place here and it became clunky. Matt got flapjacked onto a ladder on the second rope and Christian did his second rope choke on the ladder. That looked nice. Christian took a huge bump off the top of the ladder out to the floor being caught by Big Show. Or rather; landing on him. Kane began taking the announce tables apart but Drew cut him off before he could do anything.  Kofi got Drew on the table and hit a beautiful Trouble in Paradise kick to his head. With him out cold, Kofi got his intense face on and climbed a ladder outside the ring. He hit his big boom drop off the ladder through the table to a big pop. Awesome stuff.  Big Show did some big man ladder spots, squashing Christian and Matt under a ladder with a big splash. Then he got his BIG-ASS LADDER OUT. I dunno how heavy that thing is but Show legit struggled with it.  It is freakish. He got it in eventually. Before he could use it, Mr Dashing attacked his ankle with a small ladder. Kofi springboarded onto the big ladder and gave Show a nice tornado DDT. On his way back up the ladder Kofi was taken out be a BE-A-UTIFUL flying dropkick from Cody. Then a Cross-Rhodes on the ladder. Ziggler hit his Zig-Zag on Cody into the GIANT ladder which had zero give. Big Show was knocked out of the ring and buried under a pile of ladders. A bunch of guys tried to climb the giant ladder but it came down to Ziggler and Kane. Ziggler locked on his sleeper and both men fell off. Kane tried to throw Ziggler out of the ring but it was botched and Ziggler nearly tore every tendon in his leg on the top rope. He survived long enough to get tossed out of the ring ONTO the pile of ladders on Show. Then Kofi got chokeslammed on the pile. Jesus, these poor guys. Kane lawndarted Cody into the armoured truck that was by the side of the ramp. Nice spot. Christian and Matt Hardy were on the giant ladder and you could sniff the finish. I actually thought Matt might grab it. They both took big bumps off the top and necked themselves on the top rope. A chorus of boos as Drew peaks his head over the apron. He climbs but is cut off by Kane. Chokeslam off the ladder gives KANE the win. FUCKING KANE! IN 2010! Does. Not. Want. Match was probably too long, but it was the usual enjoyable Money in the Bank. Like MITB at Wrestlemania 25, the big men played their part and the little fellas took some mean bumps.

***1/2

Sheamus cut a promo on Nexus. He said he realised what everyone was warning him about now and he has picked his side. He made sure to state, however, that he has no respect for Cena. He said he got no props for his first two title wins, but he’ll earn respect when he pins Cena. He says he HATES Cena as all he wants to do is make mayonnaise jokes. Sheamus says he shall beat the SHIT out of this man in the cage. Not in those words. Claims he’s a bigger threat than Nexus. Damn fine promo.

WWE Divas Championship Match: Alicia Fox retains; def. Eve Torres

Daniel Bryan chants from a few dorks in the crowd.  They had a  very bare bones match with zero heat. That said, it was pretty good. You can’t get blood from a stone. Or make wrestling fans care about women with their tops on. Alicia dominated throughout as you may expect. Torres went for a senton but Fox got knees up. She hit her Axe-kick, safely for once, and got the clean pin. Weird finish, with Eve being beaten so clean. Good stuff by WWE women standards, but it went far too long.

**

Recap of the lame angle from Friday with Kane and Daddy SWAGGA.

Swagger was backstage on the phone to Mama Swagga. He tells her to shut up and that his dad deserved it and blah blah blah. Cheap heat segment.

Unified Tag Title Match: The Hart Dynasty retain, def. The Usos

Who could care about this? No one it would seem. Just the most basic tag match ever. Wasn’t bad by any stretch but these titles have never meant less, if you ask me. The Usos are quite good but no one really gives a crap about them. They’ve just been thrown in the deep end and they’re not getting over. Harts made a comeback as you’d expect and David won with his sharpshooter. A nothing match with a predicitable finish.

**2/3

World Championship Match: Rey Mysterio retains, def. Jack Swagger

Of course, Swagger went for the ankle throughout. Rey used his quick feet to keep ahead of Swagger but eventually got caught on a lionsault and Swagger began to dominate. Rey dodged a shoulder charge into the corner, and then hit a great seated Senton to the floor. Swagger hit his big Angle-style belly to belly of the top rope and went to work on the leg. Swagger tossed Rey around like a small child. Just toying with him. Rey did a nice split-legged moonsault. Swagger cut off Rey’s comeback, turning a lucha wheelbarrow into a german suplex. Swagger hit his gutwrench powerbomb but Rey got the ropes. Swagger attempted a big Oklahoma slam off the second rope but got Tornado-DDT’d. Awesome spot. Rey got his 619 but Swagger cut the senton and locked on an ankle lock. Great stuff. Rey gut the rope so Swagger hit the Vader bomb.  Rey wouldn’t say die and eventually as Swagger locked on the ankle lock, Rey’s boot came off and Swagger got rolled up for the win. Very good match. ****

Swagger beat on Rey after the match but Kane made the save. Kane. Mr Money in the Bank. He chased Swagger to  the back. Then as Rey was celebrating moments later, Kane reemerged with a ref and his briefcase. He was cashing in his shot.

World Championship Match: Kane becomes World Champion, def. Rey Mysterio

Rey tried to run. He was caught. He was chokeslamed. He was tombstoned. He was pinned. Kane was a huge babyface for this by the way.

n/a

The timing was just right for Kane, but GODDAMN does it suck for Rey. Two world title runs, two abominations.

Jericho and Edge face off and talk Money in the Bank.

WWE Women’s Championship: Layla retains, def. Kelly Kelly

Am I a chauvinist if I say how hot these girls are in my review? Well I don’t care. Kelly is still so awkward in the ring. They proceeded to have a shitty shitty match and I really couldn’t have cared less. And thats from someone who loves LayCool. Tiffany was also at ringside looking like the cheapest, low rent hooker you ever saw. Accurate description. Seriously. There was a horribly botched finish where McCool was unable to put Layla’s foot on the rope. Matt Striker did his horrible English accent after Layla won. This segment was offfensive.

-**

RAW Money in the Bank: The Miz def. Randy Orton, Edge, Chris Jericho, Mark Henry, John Morrison, Evan Bourne and  Ted DiBiase

Edge introduced the ladder early and let the rest of the competitors take each other out before climbing in and trying to steal the win. Orton cut him off. I was distracted in this match by the bickering commentators. Bourne attempted to get the case but Edge intervened. Bourne came off the middle rung with a hurricanrana. Orton got involved and did his DDT through the ladder rungs, even throwing a look at the ropes before the drop. Nice touch.  Morrison seemed to clunk his head off a ladder as he gave Orton the flying chuck. DiBiase and Miz double teamed Morrison who dropped them both face first into a ladder in the corner. Edge, Morrison, Orton and Jericho were all clawing at the case, when Henry parted the “red sea” as it were and all the competitors got hung on the ropes. Bourne slingshotted in with a ladder and kneed Henry in the head. That was cool. Then Maryse got in the ring. MARYSE. She struggled to get a ladder up and started climbing. This happened. She got near the top when Morrison intervened. He told her to get lost, and as he did, DiBiase climbed the ladder. Morrison cut him off. That was freakin’ wacky. Morrison had a ladder slanted against a turnbuckle outside. He ran up it, and pushed off another ladder on the inside to knock into a ladder in the centre of the ring and start climbing. That was freakin’ sweet. Even sweeter was Edge pulling Morrison’s feet through the rungs. Morrison was literally strung through the ladder, his feet hanging out one side, his head the other. Miz and Edge then used a ladder to brutalise Morrison, before Edge got Miz in the face. That was great. There was a huge mess of slanted and stacked ladders in the ring. Henry dropped Miz on a ladder ON Jericho. Sucks to be Jericho. Bourne nearly got up top as Edge and Orton were beating on Henry. Then Edge and Orton teamed up to press Evan over their heads OUT of the ring onto Henry. Nice. Then Henry got Codebreaker’d and speared. So he’s dead. A fine sequence there. They had this big complex structure set up. Jericho, Edge and Orton were climbing a ladder. Morrison was climbing an UPSIDE DOWN ladder leaning against it. Then DiBiase had a ladder bridge across the top rope and the ladder. Edge and Orton dumped that out of the ring with Ted on it. I thought at this time; someone is going to die. Edge got RKO’d. Morrison got RKO’d but before Orton could stand up he got the AirBourne. Again, just a great chain. The crowd went nuts. Bourne climbed. Bourne touched the case. Bourne got both hands. I was even marking out. Jericho cut him off. Jericho then got an RKO from a few steps up the ladder. Edge got dumped into the upside down ladder. This was just great. Orton nearly had the crowd. The crowd were on the edge of their seats. Miz dumped Orton onto the top rope. Miz climbed. Miz got the case unhooked. THE MIZ is YOUR MR MONEY IN THE BANK. Great match. Great great Money in the Bank. And the right man won.

****1/4

Miz cut a very boastful in-your-face promo.

The video package for Sheamus vs. Cena is entirely about Nexus. What a lame build.

WWE Championship Cage Match: Sheamus retains, def. John Cena (via Escape)

Sheamus is a big babyface in the building. Dunno what that’s about. Sheamus beat on Cena. And beat on him. And beat on him again. Cena was selling like death just a few minutes in. They were doing the boo/yay spot far too early too. Very poorly put together match. Cena was making little comebacks here and there, but getting cut off. Just typical stuff. Really quite boring. They were showing replays of Sheamus doing double sledges and clotheslines. No idea why. This was so underwhelming. There was great heat for Cena comebacks. This really should have been a more back and forth match than your standard Cena match. Sheamus got a sleeper and Cena did his Hogan impression powering up and carrying Sheamus on his back. Cena started climbing the cage with Sheamus on his back. I thought this was leading to a big spot but Sheamus just dropped down and took Cena’s legs away. They are determined to not do anything exciting in this match. Cena went for the Attitude Adjustment but Sheamus began climbing. Cena followed him and Sheamus fell. Cena did the Five Knuckle Shuffle off the top rope but missed Sheamus. Cole said that would take the STF out of the equation. I’ll remember that. Sheamus tied up Cena in the ropes. Leave. Just leave. Of course not, he has to beat him up. Then instead of using the door, Sheamus climbed OVER Cena. Cena got the bulldog off the top rope which was nice. Two count. Cena went for the AA again but got the back breaker instead. Crowd really went dead here. They had to sit through a slow beat down before the sequence of big spots. This was a match where they clearly had more time to fill than they wanted (think Miz and Truth at the last show). Sheamus hit his big kick, but Cena kicked out. Cena hit the AA but Sheamus kicked out. Nexus came out. Tarver had the bolt cutters. A REF took them and bailed. A FUCKING REF. Way to cut their nuts off. The Nexus turned their attention to the ref with the key. He threw the key into the crowd. Jesus. Ref in the cage got bumped into the fence. Sheamus tapped to the STF in the ring but no ref. Cena then fought with Gabriel on the top of the cage. Gabriel took a BIG bump off the top into the ring. The Nexus were fighting Sheamus and Cena as they tried to climb down. Cena had to deal with four guys, Sheamus had Slater. Sheamus won and LEGGED IT again. I guess Sheamus’ shtick is win by any means. Picked up by the end but FAR too much time and a real pain early on.

***

Sheamus was declared the winner as he sprinted away. Cena looked pissed. He beat on Darren Young and Tarver as the rest chased Sheamus. Cena looked pissed and we fade to black. Commentators talked about how the takeover of Raw continued. HOW? I have no conceivable idea what they plan to accomplish by arbitrarily running in on title matches with no clear objective. They attacked both champion and challenger so they were going to fail one way or the other, and this week Cena killed TWO of them on his own. This is a LAME invasion.

Overall a pretty good show by my counting. The two ladder matches stole the show which is good, the world title bout was very enjoyable, there was an UNGODLY woman’s match and an above average women’s match and a disappointing main. So to be fair it was a typical WWE show. If you’re a glass half full guy (I’ve resolved to take this attitude) it was a good show. If you’re calling it down the middle, and say it was average, I’d say you were pretty harsh but I couldn’t really argue.

7/10 - Recommended watch. Both ladder matches were great, I agree with one decision and not with the other, one decent women’s bout, one awful, one great world title match, one average… and then whatever the hell the tag team division is supposed to be these days.